Attacking Darius:

These people have fusion reactors. They emit neutrinos. Those are more or less impossible to screen out, so if you have a magic detector you can see them at a distance, and tell if the local system has fusion reactors in orbit around its sun.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:And the noise floor apparently rises with the bands, so your detection range drops and the details fuzzed out more as you rise from alpha towards whatever is the current limit. Each one is worse than the one below it.

Indeed, but at least for Alpha and Beta, the multiplier is probably significant enough that it outweighs the particle density.

phillies wrote:These people have fusion reactors. They emit neutrinos. Those are more or less impossible to screen out, so if you have a magic detector you can see them at a distance, and tell if the local system has fusion reactors in orbit around its sun.

Are you reacting to the detection of ships while translating bands or just using the latest message to continue a previous discussion?

If you meant detecting ship fusion reactors, I don't think that's possible with another ship's neutrino detectors. If such detectors exist, that would usually mean there's effective shielding for neutrinos. But even assuming that's not the case, it would imply one can detect stealth ships by their neutrino emissions. That's kind of a Star Trek solution to the problem, not an HV one.

If you meant hiding the industry of a system, I don't think you need neutrino detectors. I'm pretty convinced you can't hide industry at all. It's just too noisy in all manner of spectra (neutrino included, but especially thermal / infra-red), plus they are usually gigantic platforms and have lots of materials coming in.

phillies wrote:These people have fusion reactors. They emit neutrinos. Those are more or less impossible to screen out, so if you have a magic detector you can see them at a distance, and tell if the local system has fusion reactors in orbit around its sun.

I’m pretty sure the honorverse is using H-H fusion. That’s why you have the absurd temp and density in the core of the reactors.

So, yes, there is fusion going on in the direction of that giant bright fusion reactor. Is there any other sources? Good question. It’s like trying to hear the driver talking into his radio as he drives past you in a race car at the Indy 500. The 140 dB engine makes this kind of hard.

staging area

noun

a stopping place or assembly point en route to a destination.

"a vast staging area for guerrilla attacks"


A staging area (otherwise staging point, staging base, or staging post) is a location where organisms, people, vehicles, equipment, or material are assembled before use.

A staging area is where you build your camp fire, soak your feet, get a good meal and assemble to discuss what's at hand. All of your ships are huddled up with shuttles ferrying top brass to meetings.

Now imagine that the GA just so happens to choose a staging area that is infested with Spiders. And these Spiders are sneaking up on a staging area of sitting ducks. Well, so much for that mission. The Spiders will be having roasted duck.

cthia wrote:A staging area is where you build your camp fire, soak your feet, get a good meal and assemble to discuss what's at hand. All of your ships are huddled up with shuttles ferrying top brass to meetings.

Now imagine that the GA just so happens to choose a staging area that is infested with Spiders. And these Spiders are sneaking up on a staging area of sitting ducks. Well, so much for that mission. The Spiders will be having roasted duck.

Again, the problem is just how many star systems to seed with torpedoes. We're talking about the MAlign having seeded anywhere between 200 and 600 systems with sufficient spiders to make a difference. How many torpedoes would be required to attack a staged Grand Fleet? One thousand? That's 200k to 600k torpedoes.

Plus all the freighters to move them there.

Then there's the time required to assemble them into an attack pattern to do more than piss off the CO of that fleet. Is the staged fleet going to stay in system that long?

And remember they don't actually have to be anywhere specific. They can simply be in the middle of nowhere in empty space. Just drop out of hyper a couple of light-months from Darius. Even if the platforms can detect that far (TEiF says they can't), 3 light-months out means an FTL transmission time of 1.5 days. That's plenty of time to make last-minute attack plans and beat the signal to Darius' hyperlimit.

Edit: fixed division by 62.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:A staging area is where you build your camp fire, soak your feet, get a good meal and assemble to discuss what's at hand. All of your ships are huddled up with shuttles ferrying top brass to meetings.

Now imagine that the GA just so happens to choose a staging area that is infested with Spiders. And these Spiders are sneaking up on a staging area of sitting ducks. Well, so much for that mission. The Spiders will be having roasted duck.

Again, the problem is just how many star systems to seed with torpedoes. We're talking about the MAlign having seeded anywhere between 200 and 600 systems with sufficient spiders to make a difference. How many torpedoes would be required to attack a staged Grand Fleet? One thousand? That's 200k to 600k torpedoes.

Plus all the freighters to move them there.

Then there's the time required to assemble them into an attack pattern to do more than piss off the CO of that fleet. Is the staged fleet going to stay in system that long?

And remember they don't actually have to be anywhere specific. They can simply be in the middle of nowhere in empty space. Just drop out of hyper a couple of light-months from Darius. Even if the platforms can detect that far (TEiF says they can't), 3 light-months out means an FTL transmission time of 1.5 days. That's plenty of time to make last-minute attack plans and beat the signal to Darius' hyperlimit.

Edit: fixed division by 62.

I'm not suggesting the MA seed any systems with torpedoes. Well, unless that system is somehow important to them. I'm talking about the type of assistance that comes along from time to time from a being called Murphy. And sometimes from a thing called Providence. I am assuming the MAN conduct wargames and exercises in nearby systems as well as any other navy. I'm talking about rotten RMN luck causing them to haphazardly stumble upon a Spider infected system.

I am simply pointing out the number of things that can go wrong for the GA when attacking Darius. It won't be anything like business as usual.

At any rate, about that empty space thing. There is no way the GA can be assured that anywhere is "empty space" once they boldly go where no non-Mesan has ever gone before. Sure, the GA can choose a safe place in the "known" Galaxy. But they will still want to check in with the fleet once they near Darius. The supply train could have developed engine problems. Anything.

cthia wrote:I'm not suggesting the MA seed any systems with torpedoes. Well, unless that system is somehow important to them. I'm talking about the type of assistance that comes along from time to time from a being called Murphy. And sometimes from a thing called Providence. I am assuming the MAN conduct wargames and exercises in nearby systems as well as any other navy. I'm talking about rotten RMN luck causing them to haphazardly stumble upon a Spider infected system.

I am simply pointing out the number of things that can go wrong for the GA when attacking Darius. It won't be anything like business as usual.

Even Murphy obeys the laws of statistic. The chance that the GF chooses to stage on a system which is one that the MAN is interested in is already minimal, maybe 1:100. For that to be a system that the MAN there at the same time with a non-permanent presence drops the chances to what, 1 in 10000?

Plus, I don't think the MAN exercises outside of Darius... because you can make the argument the other way around and there could accidentally be someone else observing. They'd only exercise on a system they know no one is close enough to observe, which means one with an FTL detection grid. I'd be surprised if they have that anywhere but Darius, but definitely not more than 3 systems total. The GF wouldn't stage in such a system because they'd see the detection grid.

At any rate, about that empty space thing. There is no way the GA can be assured that anywhere is "empty space" once they boldly go where no non-Mesan has ever gone before. Sure, the GA can choose a safe place in the "known" Galaxy. But they will still want to check in with the fleet once they near Darius. The supply train could have developed engine problems. Anything.

The chance of being in range of one another if one just chooses empty space is negligible.

If your horizon of visibility with ships is a cubic light-day (and it isn't), remember that there are 365.25^3 cubic light-days in a cubic-light-year. That's 48,727,112.2.

Like I said, even Murphy obeys statistics.

And besides, what are they going to do? If the MAN detects the GF staging nearby, the best they can do is bolt home and warn the defences to be ready. The GF would do well to assume the defences are ready until they actually cross the alpha wall and determine they aren't.

I don't see why it should be so hard to attack Darius. What's hard is finding it.

The GA is going to show up loaded for T-Rex. Gaston should have taught them to approach cautiously, not go right up to the wall. Send in the drones, there are two scenarios:

1) They see defensive installations. Pick one, fire a salvo sufficient to kill it and whatever ships fired hyper out as soon as the strike goes home as there probably is counterfire heading their way. GA missiles outrun anything stealthy the MA has, they'll get away clean no matter what is fired at them. It's the same thing Honor did about the massive missile storm at Sol. Rinse and repeat.

2) They don't see defensive installations. Demand the evacuation of structure X, then bring it under fire. The MA has to reveal itself to intercept the missiles. If they stay in hiding the GA picks apart everything in space.

The GA ships have a lot more accel than anything stealthy the MA has, so long as they keep using that accel to move around zig-zagging the MA can't stage any major ambush. They might run over some ships but other posts have shown that the GA can maintain a recon shell sufficient to find a spider before it gets to effective energy range.

Note, also, that GA energy range should exceed spider energy range. Energy weapons are subject to lightspeed targeting limits and given the drive performance longer range shots will generally miss a zigging target. Spider performance is lower, it can't zig as well, it can be hit from farther. And even if damage is low at such ranges the mass of firepower will still add up--even if you don't take it out anything on the side facing you is in a world of hurt--it's not going to be able to shoot back.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Note, also, that GA energy range should exceed spider energy range. Energy weapons are subject to lightspeed targeting limits and given the drive performance longer range shots will generally miss a zigging target. Spider performance is lower, it can't zig as well, it can be hit from farther. And even if damage is low at such ranges the mass of firepower will still add up--even if you don't take it out anything on the side facing you is in a world of hurt--it's not going to be able to shoot back.

You are on a golf course surrounded by a thick pine forest. Somewhere in that forest is a well camouflaged sniper with a suppressed precision rifle. He might be prone on the ground or high up in a tree. You have a machine gun with a million rounds of ammo.

The start signal for the this competition is when the camouflaged sniper starts shooting at you.

How will this likely end?

kzt wrote:You are on a golf course surrounded by a thick pine forest. Somewhere in that forest is a well camouflaged sniper with a suppressed precision rifle. He might be prone on the ground or high up in a tree. You have a machine gun with a million rounds of ammo.

The start signal for the this competition is when the camouflaged sniper starts shooting at you.

How will this likely end?

Not a very good analogy because people's reaction times are far slower than sniper round travel times, whereas it's possible to see something in a space warfare engagement, react to it and fire at it before it hits you. For the analogy to be good, it would need to be possible to hit the sniper's bullet with another bullet, if you could see it coming. Instead of a sniper, it might be more analogous to a mortar team: you don't know where they are, but once you detect the incoming shell (if you're good), you can pinpoint where it came from and you may be able to fire at it before it strikes.

To continue this thread, we need to bring in some lessons from Galton and that would mean spoilers. So I'm holding off a few more weeks.